


blooming love

by buckgaybarnes



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Kaiju, Alternate Universe - Professors, Awkward Flirting, Bickering, M/M, Meet-Cute, Spring, manic pixie dream scientist newton geiszler
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:48:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22804363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckgaybarnes/pseuds/buckgaybarnes
Summary: Dr. Gottlieb (professor of physics, unwilling serial killer of potted ferns) makes the acquaintance of the obnoxious Dr. Geiszler (professor of biology, resident savior of potted ferns) and falls very, very slightly in love
Relationships: Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb
Comments: 10
Kudos: 183





	blooming love

**Author's Note:**

> so guess who discovered they had a finished and totally unpublished fic just sitting in their documents for like, a year? its me!

Hermann meets Dr. Geiszler on a Tuesday.

It’s an uneventful Tuesday, as far as Tuesdays go. Hermann’s alarm goes off at 7:30 am. He hits _snooze_ on it until 8 am. He showers. He dresses for the day. He doesn’t eat breakfast, but he does drink coffee, and he buys more coffee on his walk to his bus stop from a small, and overpriced, cafe. He takes the bus. He teaches a class. He settles into his office at three minutes past noon, ready to eat lunch, and even more ready to go home and go back to bed. He is not thinking of anything, really, other than that.

This is when a small man shoves open his door without so much as a knock and declares “You’re murdering your plants.”

Hermann stares at him over his sandwich. (Gluten-free bread, cucumbers, cream cheese.) He sets down his sandwich. “Excuse me?” he says.

His first wild thought (after _who is this_ ) is that this man must be a student. His hair is done up with far too-much product, his outfit—tight ripped jeans, sloppily tucked shirt, bracelets, pinkie rings, and a single stud in one ear—is far too unprofessional, and he has far too many tattoos to be anything but. But he’s far too old for it, far too old to be a typical graduate student, even. Closer to Hermann’s age than anything else. A disgruntled overprotective parent of an undergrad, perhaps? God forbid—a _colleague_?

The man marches right over to the windowsill, where Hermann keeps an array of wilting plants, and immediately begins to fret over them. “You’re murdering them,” he repeats. “Look at this. Do you even _water_ them?”

“I,” Hermann says. “Er. I’m sorry. Who are you, exactly?”

“Newt,” the man says. He pokes at a brown leaf and _tsk_ s.

“Newt who?”

Newt heaves a great sigh, and rolls his eyes, as if Hermann’s the one who is being completely unreasonable here. “Geiszler. As in, doctor. Biology. My office is—” He points out the window, across the small patch of grass that leads to the rest of the quad, where the science building curves and gives Hermann a view into several rooms, one of which is, presumably, Dr. Geiszler’s, “—over there.”

“I see,” Hermann says. A colleague, then. How horrifying. “Why are you here?”

“Every time I walk by here I have to see _these,_ ” Newt says, “and they’re depressing. Really, dude.”

“Have you considered not walking by here?” Hermann says. “Or, perhaps, minding your own—”

“Give me five minutes,” Newt says, and he scurries out Hermann’s office door.

A minute later, Hermann sees him scurrying just as quickly across the courtyard. A few minutes after that, he’s scurrying back, but with two bottles in hand. He shoves open Hermann’s door once more. “Okay,” he says, “okay, okay, here—” Both bottles have spray nozzles, but one is filled with—what Hermann takes to be—water, the other with something mildly more green. Newt holds up one after the other. “Water,” he says, and then, beginning to spray the plants with each, “and plant food. My own recipe.”

Hermann isn’t sure whether he ought to thank the man or not. He settles on squinting at him suspiciously. “Dr. Geiszler—”

“Newt,” Newt corrects. “It’s too dark in here, too. You gotta—” He sets down the spritzer of water long enough to yank open Hermann’s blinds completely, and, as if as an afterthought, pushes the window open too. The breeze—unseasonably warm for February—rustles Hermann’s papers, sending him leaning over quickly to snag a sophomore’s lab assignment before it hits the floor. Hermann places his coffee mug over the rest as a makeshift paperweight.

“Do you _mind_?” he says.

“Let them breathe,” Newt says. He sprays the plants a few more times—another breeze sending a fine mist of water directly at Hermann’s face, to Hermann’s displeasure—before setting both bottles down on the fourth shelf of Hermann’s bookcase and wiping his hands on his skinny jeans. “There. Water them _regularly_ from now on, okay?”

He turns and looks at Hermann, for perhaps the first time throughout the entire debacle, and startles visibly for reasons Hermann can’t begin to comprehend. “Oh,” he says. “Hi.”

“Hello,” Hermann says, tersely.

Newt shifts on his heels. He squeezes his hands into his pockets. “I’m Newt,” he says.

“You mentioned,” Hermann says. Newt stares at him; belatedly, Hermann realizes he should introduce himself as well. “Dr. Gottlieb,” he says.

Newt points to the nameplate resting on his desk. ( _Dr. H. Gottlieb_ ). “What’s the _H_ stand for?”

“Hermann,” Hermann says. Another breeze; another stack of student papers wobbles threateningly. Hermann acts fast and sets his stapler down on top of those. “Do you mind shutting the window?”

“Oh!” Newt says. He whirls around and obliges, though he does not draw the blinds again. When he turns back, he has a strange look on his face. “So, Hermann,” he says. He nods towards the texts that neatly line his bookshelves. “Physics, huh?”

“Dr. Geiszler,” Hermann begins. “I appreciate your...help, but my next lecture is in thirty minutes, and I’ve an appointment with a student beforehand, so I haven’t exactly got—”

“Of course,” Newt says. “Yeah, no, of course. Here.” He darts forward, suddenly, and snatches up a pad of sticky notes and a pen from Hermann’s desk, then quickly scribbles something out. He thrusts the pad back at Hermann, and Hermann takes it with a frown. He’s written down— “My phone number,” Newt says. “You can text me updates.”

“On the plants,” Hermann deadpans.

“On the plants,” Newt confirms.

He does not make to leave. Hermann clears his throat. “Dr. Geiszler, I do have that appointment coming up.”

“Right!” Newt says. “Right. I’ll go. Water your plants.”

He darts away.

“What an odd little man,” Hermann says aloud, to no one in particular.

Later, once Hermann’s student arrives—precisely on time—and they’ve finished going over corrections for her latest exam in detail, an idea strikes Hermann as he watches her pack up her bag to leave. The girl’s a physics major, but—judging from the textbooks Hermann sees shoved alongside her notebook, her MacBook, and the text for his own class—she takes lectures in biology as well. “I don’t suppose you know anything about Dr. Geiszler, do you?” he says.

The girl pauses, halfway-finished zipping up her bag. “You mean Newt?” she says. Hermann nods. She smiles, to Hermann’s surprise; she’d been so withdrawn, so quiet, throughout their appointment (and Hermann knows his own reputation as a bit _formidable_ and _strict_ precedes him). “I’m in one of his classes this semester. He’s awesome.”

“Ah,” Hermann says. He thinks to the yellow sticky note he’s folded up, neatly, into a small square and slipped into his top breast pocket. “Is he,” he begins, falsely airy, falsely disinterested, “married?”

“Nah,” the girl says. “I don’t think so.” She looks at Hermann a little oddly. “Why?”

“No particular reason,” Hermann says. He slips off his glasses and clears his throat. “Right, off you go. If you have any difficulty with the homework, don’t hesitate to send an email.”

She swings her bag over her shoulder and nods.

* * *

Dr. Geiszler reemerges in Hermann’s office a week later, though with far less erratic (and far less _accusatory_ ) fanfare. He _knocks_ this time, for one thing, and lurks in the doorway until Hermann sets aside his pencil and bids him entry. Even then, he stands very still in front of Hermann’s desk, hands still shoved into his pockets. “I wanted to apologize,” he says.

Hermann arches an eyebrow. “For what?”

“I was kind of an asshole the other day,” Newt says. He gestures, wordlessly, to the chair resting on the other side of Hermann’s desk that Hermann keeps for students, and Hermann nods; Newt drops down into it. “So, sorry about that.”

“Mm,” Hermann says. He spares a glance to the plants on the windowsill. He’s left the blinds open, as per Newt’s advice, and sunlight streams through in a way that’s, frankly, a marked improvement. Makes Hermann’s office feel much less like dusty cellblock. The plants appear to be enjoying it too. “I admit, they look far better now.”

Newt follows his gaze, and his face splits into a wide grin. “They do,” he agrees. “Have you been giving them my—” He mimes spraying something with his thumb and pointer finger. Presuming he means the plant food, Hermann nods. “Sweet! Just text me whenever you need some more.” Newt’s grin falters a bit. “Uh. Assuming you kept my number and didn’t, like, crumple it up or something. I wouldn’t blame you.”

Very carefully, Hermann draws the sticky note out from his top desk drawer, unfolds it, and presents it for Newt to see. “I kept it,” he says.

The corners of Newt’s eyes (hazel, Hermann likes the look of them) crinkle behind his thick glasses in a way that is very pleasing. He leans back in his chair. “So I heard you were asking my students about me,” he says.

“Student,” Hermann corrects. “ _Singular_.”

“Of course,” Newt says. 

He continues to look at Hermann expectantly, until Hermann clears his throat and continues. “I simply...didn’t know what to make of you.”

“Of _course_ ,” Newt repeats. He leans back further, in a way that might suggest, worryingly, that he is about to kick his dirty boots up on Hermann’s desk and important papers. He does not. “I’m _not_ married, by the way,” he says. “Not seeing anyone either.”

“I see,” Hermann says.

“You know, since you were so eager to find out,” Newt says.

Hermann’s collar begins to feel rather restricting. He twists his glasses chain between two fingers. “Yes, well,” he says. He debates informing Newt that he, himself, is quite single as well, but thinks better of it. He’s not _desperate_ ; he’s only spoken to the man once before. “If that’s all—”

Newt hops to his feet. “I guess,” he says. “See you around.”

* * *

Hermann does not text Newt, like he sorely wants to, though he often thinks of the man. He thinks of Newt when he waters his plants and mists them with the funny green spray bottle. He thinks of Newt when he passes by the Biology department on his walk to his office. He thinks of Newt when he opens his top drawer to retrieve a pencil or a notepad and is, once more, confronted with his quickly-scrawled phone number. Newt signed it with a tiny doodle of a lizard. It’s...strangely charming.

Hermann does not text Newt until a week or so into March, following the university's brief, and early, spring break, when he unlocks his office door and discovers that his poor fern has turned a distressing shade of brown; he imagines, a little too late, that he should’ve brought it home with him over break.

After a few unsuccessful attempts to breathe life into it, he finally yanks open the top desk drawer and retrieves Newt’s note. _I have a bit of an emergency,_ he texts, and then, as an afterthought, signs off his name.

Newt bursts through his door no more than ten minutes later. “What’s wrong?” he says. He sounds out of breath. As if he’s run the whole way. He probably has. Hermann raises a finger towards the poor plant, and Newt tsks. “You _left_ it here?”

“I didn’t mean to,” Hermann says miserably. “I forgot.”

Newt shakes his head and mutters under his breath as he pokes at it. He pulls off a few dry, shriveled leaves and tosses them into the rubbish bin, and begins to mist at it with the spray bottle of water. Then he opens the window. “Give it a day,” he finally says, stepping back with his hands on his hips. “Then we’ll know.”

“I’m _sorry_ ,” Hermann says, even more miserably. He feels as if he’s committed some great, horrendous sin. But Newt drops his stance and gives Hermann a short, easy smile that calms him instantly.

“Hey,” he says. “‘S fine. Text me when it starts to perk back up, okay?”

Hermann nods, wordless.

The plant’s regained its usual vigor by the end of the week. As per the man’s request, Hermann texts Newt a slightly blurry photo of it, along with a meticulously-chosen emoji; Newt does not reply, but he does barge into Hermann’s office half an hour later with a hand-held carrier of four separate disposable cups and bulging brown paper bag, all emblazoned with the campus coffee shop logo. “I wasn’t sure what you liked,” he says, “so I bought...a variety.”

He tosses Hermann the bag. It’s stuffed with pastries. “Er,” Hermann says. “Thank you.” He sets it on the desk, and chooses the coffee that appears to be plain black. “Why did you…?”

“In celebration,” Newt says, and leans forward and picks up one of the frappuccinos. He nods his head towards the recently-revived plant as he pokes the straw out of its wrapper. “It lives. Hey, did you ever used to do this when you were a kid?”

Newt takes the visible bit of straw into his mouth and blows, hard; the straw wrapper, which he’d pushed about a fourth of the way down, flies off the end and hits Hermann directly in the chest. 

Hermann looks at him blankly. Newt grins.

* * *

A week later, as he grades some more assignments, Hermann catches sight of a very familiar head of messy brown hair bobbing by his office window. He imagines it’s merely a campus groundskeeper (and that he has Newt on the mind) up until he hears humming, in a _very_ distinctly high pitch, coming through the small open crack. 

It is, in fact, Newt, which Hermann discovers when he slides the window open entirely and pokes his head out. Newt, his sleeves rolled up, tight jeans cuffed, and kneeling in the small patch of dirt beneath the window and slowly digging a hole with a trowel. He squints up at Hermann at the noise, then smiles. “Hi,” he says. He sets down the trowel.

“Hi,” Hermann says. “What are you doing?”

Newt sits back on his heels, then reaches behind himself and presents a small, potted, flowering bush. “Beautifying the courtyard,” he says.

The remainder of the dirt patches circling the inner walls in the courtyard are untouched. “Just beneath my window?”

Newt’s smile widens. “Just beneath your window. That okay?”

Hermann gives it a few seconds of thought, then nods. “I don’t see why not.”

* * *

The flowers bloom fully in April. Hermann, having taken to leaving his office window open, is able to enjoy their fragrance with each wafting little breeze; he enjoys their pollen far less, though he only discloses the former information to Newt.

“They’re terribly lovely,” he tells Newt through the window one day, chin propped up on his elbows to watch as Newt (dressed in a rather silly pair of overalls and what appear to be disposable gloves appropriated from his laboratory) wages war on weeds that have popped up around the plants. Hermann is thankful he arrived when he did. Any earlier, and he would’ve been witness to an impressive spring allergies-induced sneezing fit from Hermann. “And, er. They smell lovely, too.”

He inhales deeply to make his point: immediately, his eyes begin to water. _Bugger_.

“Ha, yeah,” Newt says. Hermann wipes tears away discreetly on the cuff of his shirtsleeve. “I like them ‘cause they’re blue. Here.”

He hands Hermann a bouquet he’s snipped neatly. Hermann reaches out and takes it. “Oh, Newt,” he says, and he hopes Newt takes the mingling fear and steadily-building cough causing his voice to waver to be emotion instead. “How—”

Newt stretches through the window and kisses him. He’s not a particularly graceful kisser, not that Hermann expected him to be, but he is _very_ enthusiastic—too much teeth, too much tongue, plenty of excited little gasps that echo in Hermann’s own mouth. He has a proud smile on his face when he pulls away, as if he expects Hermann to congratulate him on a job well done. _Jolly good kiss, Dr. Geiszler._

Hermann doesn’t intend to congratulate him—as flushed and tongue-tied as the kiss has left him, because it was very nice—but he does intend to invite him out for dinner that very night, like he's been fantasizing about for _some_ time. He ends up doing neither. Instead, when he opens his mouth, it’s to duck his face into the crook of his elbow and sneeze three times in a row.

“Pollen,” he sniffs, finally, as Newt looks stricken. “Er, dinner on me?”

**Author's Note:**

> oh to live vicariously through these boys in the springtime...
> 
> find me at my usual spots: tumblr at hermannsthumb, twitter at hermanngaylieb


End file.
